Day Care and Cave Babies

Is day care for modern day babies and toddlers hurtful to them? Caveman Theory says no. Early caveman babies were raised in clans where many babies and toddlers were present and raised by numbers of women. That was good. It is good. Older babies and toddlers benefit from early socialization. Stay at home moms without other children near the age of their older baby or toddler should seek out times for their child to interact with other children his or her age.

Therefore, day care itself is not bad for the child.

However…

The problem is that the 6-week old baby is separated from its mother. During caveman days, the groups of mothers, including the biological mother generally, took care of the groups of children; the baby still had contact with his or her mother.

Working moms: I am sorry, but all is not well for your baby when, after 6 weeks of age, they suddenly find themselves without you for 8+ hours, 5 days a week. And NO…you can rationalize all you want, but NOTHING good comes from leaving a 2 or 3 month old baby with strangers. At that time in the baby’s life, it needs it’s mothers.

Mothers KNOW this instinctively. But they cling to “feel good” thoughts such as, “it builds independence”. Yeah right. What it builds is anxiety and insecurity because they learn they can’t count on their mothers not to abandon them for hours on end.

Economically, you may have no choice in these times; I understand that. But never rationalize your way around the fact that your baby is better off with you 24/7 the first six months and nearly that often the rest of the first year.

What about stay at home dads you ask? That’s another post coming soon.